


Really Into Scientists

by pi_meson



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-09
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-03-29 17:23:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3904624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pi_meson/pseuds/pi_meson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos invents a machine that lets him bring people from the past into Night Vale for a few hours at a time. Cecil, of course, is so <i>very</i> into science that he is desperate to meet <i>all</i> the scientists Carlos wants to interview. For <i>science,</i> of course.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tycho Brahe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I read it on the internet, so it must be true, right?
> 
> http://io9.com/5696469/the-crazy-life-and-crazier-death-of-tycho-brahe-historys-strangest-astronomer

“I think I’m ready to test my latest very scientific invention, Cecil, want to come to the lab later?” Carlos crowed down the phone during the Weather segment of Cecil’s show, playing very quietly in the background.  
Cecil’s voice raised in pitch, volume and word rate. “Oh is it finished? Can I really see it work? Wow this is so utterly _scientific!_ I can hardly wait. You are just the best. The _best._ I’ll wrap up my show real quick, or I could extend the weather and come over now?”  
Carlos laughed, his enthusiasm for science matched by his boyfriend’s enthusiasm for scientists. “Do whatever suits you. Probably better finish your show honey, testing could take time and I know time isn’t real, especially during the weather, but you might be interested in the results of my experiments and want to stay awhile. You will bring your microphone? Mmm?”  
“You betcha! You know I never go anywhere without it. Okay, I will finish my show before I rush over to observe my favourite scientist doing such important science.”

Cecil spent the last five minutes of his show explaining in absolutely no detail at all how the town was once again saved from impending disaster and just how clever his favourite scientist was. Carlos smiled as he listened, adjusting dials and sliders on the humming electrical equipment in front of him. Soon he felt Cecil’s arms circle his waist from behind and a kiss on his cheek as he turned.  
“You’re here! We can start!” Carlos grinned and kissed Cecil, a quick touch of their lips. “I put some thought into where to look. There are some really interesting scientists I’d like to meet. We can interview them together.” Carlos returned his attention to his gleaming machine. “This bit is fiddly.” Cecil sat on a workbench and admired the scientist at work, bending over his shiny invention to adjust settings and flick off a speck of dust that dared mar its appearance.  
Cecil stared. “Oh that is _very_ scientific.” He pointed to a dial near the floor. “Is that reading correct?” Cecil watched with interest as Carlos bent right over to examine the dial closely.  
“Yes, yes that is definitely within normal parameters. Looks real good, Cecil.”  
Cecil smirked. “Sure does, sweetie!”

Carlos stood, stretched and put a finger over a big red switch. “Ready?”  
Cecil grinned. “Mmhmmhmm. Science me!”

Carlos flicked the switch and the machine hummed louder. Sparks crackled around the edges of an area marked out with yellow and black hazard tape and a faint mist thickened to a fog in the air. Cecil watched the fog swirl and solidify, form a humanoid shape of modest stature, build into features and detail.

The man stood gaping at the wonders around him. Cecil stood gaping at the man in the fog. The man had a face that looked like it rarely saw the sun, shoulder length sandy hair, a neat beard and the most impressive moustache Cecil had ever seen.

The man garbled something, muffled within the remaining miasma. Carlos spoke slowly and clearly as he peered at dials, adjusted knobs and sliders. “Hold on, you are mostly safe, wait a minute, THERE!”  
The translucent vapour vanished with a hiss and the man stood scowling with his fists raised.

“Who are you and where have you taken my laboratory!” he demanded, moustache twitching and entrancing Cecil.  
Carlos almost skipped towards the belligerent man. “Oh! Oh this is so exciting!” He turned to Cecil. “This is… Oh I have wanted to meet you for so long! Cecil, this is… Oh, sir, I forget my manners." Carlos bowed. "Please, would you do us the honour of introducing yourself?”  
The man, disarmed by Carlos’s obvious adoration, dropped his guard and his fists. He spoke, his words decorated by an accent Cecil found delightful.  
“My name is Tycho Brahe. I am one of the richest men in the Kingdom of Denmark. Who the fuck are you, and where is my astronomical equipment? The king will not be happy when he finds his best astronomer has been robbed.”

Cecil flicked his eyes down and up the man’s form. Carlos held out a hand. “You can step out of the marked area. My highly scientific time-and-space machine will translate for us as long as you do not stray too far from it.”  
Brahe stepped forward. “I see that I am in the presence of a scientist almost as clever as me.” He bowed low. Cecil stepped forwards, bent down and picked up an object from the floor. He held out a brownish-yellow, shiny bulbous shape.  
“Mr Brahe, I believe you dropped your nose.”

The angry, confused, and now embarrassed time-traveller snatched his prosthesis from Cecil's hand. "How DARE you! You stare at my disfigurement, gawping like a... like a..."  
Cecil put on his most charming smile. "I am so sorry. I was admiring the workmanship. Did you design it yourself? It is a very shapely prosthetic proboscis. What is it made from?"  
Brahe was disarmed to find interest where he anticipated ridicule. He looked at the lump in his palm. "This one is brass. It is my everyday wear nose. I have a gold one for special occasions," Brahe patted amongst the folds of his pantaloons, withdrew his hand and revealed a polished, yellow snout. "See?"  
Cecil _ooh_ -ed over it. "That is beautifully made. Carlos, have you seen this?" Carlos agreed that Brahe possessed quite the most shapely nose he had ever seen. "Oh go on, put on your fancy nose. I bet you look like a real SILF with your fancy facewear on."  
Brahe frowned and mouthed _silf?_ then shrugged. "Alas, I have no paste with which to affix my appendage. Unless one of you strange fellows can oblige me?"  
Cecil smiled, "I'd be happy to oblige you but I think Carlos will be more practical help."

Soon, Brahe sported his golden nose, held on with superglue. Carlos explained the chemistry behind adhesives as he lined up the prosthesis. When he was done, he handed Brahe a pocket mirror and asked, "What do you think?"  
Brahe admired his features and pocketed Carlos's mirror. Carlos pretended not to notice. "Hmm. From all you just told me I infer that you were born under the sign of the bull."  
Cecil clapped. "Perfect! Spot on, Mr Brahe. May I call you Tycho?"  
Brahe frowned. "Tycho."  
Cecil tried again. "Tycho?"  
Brahe sighed. "Close enough. You are staring at my nose."  
"It is a very handsome nose. Carlos, don't you think Tycho's nose is very becoming?"  
Carlos nodded. "Mr Brahe--"  
"Oh Carlos, you stuffy old man, he said we can call him Tycho--"  
Brahe interrupted. "It's _Tycho_... Oh whatever."  
"Okay, okay Cecil! Umm, Tycho, can you tell me what your most important scientific discovery has been? So far?"

Brahe's face pulled into a scowl and his voice thundered.  
"I WILL NOT! You are working for my student? You can tell that upstart Kepler that he will NEVER get his hands on my observations! The pushy little turd wants to steal my work! I have made THE MOST important observations on the motions of the heavens and the upstart puppy wants to prove me WRONG! Using MY DATA! You tell him that no amount of... of... this MAGIC will persuade me to give away my work! He will get his greedy little paws on my notes OVER MY STINKING, MAGGOT-INFESTED CORPSE!"

Carlos stepped back at the force of Brahe's wrath. Cecil laughed, put a hand on the trembling man's shoulder and squeezed gently. "You are so sweet, protecting your work like that. My Carlos is just the same sometimes. I would never go rummaging in his drawers without permission and you should see his face if I talk about how he is always so hard at work. He gets all red and shakes a bit. Like you're doing now. Honestly? It's kinda hot."  
Carlos rolled his eyes. "Cecil, I know you're really into scientists but I'm right here, honey, and I'm sure Mr Brahe isn't interested."  
Cecil sighed. "Oh well. Tycho, how did you come to have such a shapely nose?"  
Brahe pursed his lips and pulled his eyebrows down. He shook himself slightly.  
"I suppose there's no harm in telling you what is common knowledge amongst the educated and informed gentry. My esteemed colleague and adversary Parsbjerg and I got into an argument over a mathematical theorem he found scribbled into the margin of an ecclesiastical text. We could not come together on this matter. Sir, mathematics is not a source of amusement! There was no course of action open to us other than to duel it out. We met after lunch the next day once our hangovers abated somewhat and set-to with our swords. I used a particularly fine and decorative rapier, as befits a nobleman of my stature. He, unfortunately, possessed a longer, cruder blade. I swear I got first hit and by rights won the argument, but I lost the end of my nose."  
Cecil affected a look of sympathy. Brahe wasn't quite finished.  
"Bastard."

Cecil was generally a better host than Carlos. Carlos would forget that people need food. Indeed, he occasionally forgot that even scientists need sustenance from time to time, so it was Cecil who said, "Hey, anyone hungry? Carlos, I will look after Tycho and you go next door to Big Rico's. Everyone likes pizza, right?"  
Brahe nodded with enthusiasm. "I am hungry. I was on the point of calling for dinner and the services of my jester, Jepp, when my observatory faded into the strange fog that still encroaches on my peripheral awareness."  
Carlos frowned. "You see fog around you?"  
Brahe nodded. "Indeed, Mr Magician. I feel there is fog around me, just over my shoulder, and I cannot quite see it properly. Furthermore, there are... things... in the fog."  
Cecil chirped, "Hey if you see a faceless old woman, say hi from me."  
Carlos frowned deeper, adjusted a dial and asked again about the fog.  
Brahe looked over his shoulder. "Thinner, but still present."  
Carlos sighed. "Ah, I was afraid of this. Your time in our reality is limited. Bringing you here stretched time and space and it is going to snap back. We will need to return you safely to your own reality. Maybe in an hour or two. If the fog thickens enough to impair the sight of your own fingers, step back into the marked area."

Cecil smiled at Brahe once Carlos donned his outerwear lab-coat and went next door to order pizza. "We can offer food and somewhere to eat it but I am afraid we have no jester. What does a jester do, exactly?"  
Brahe laughed. "Oh Jepp is such a good entertainer. He remains under the table and entertains me and my guests."  
Cecil frowned. "Does he tell jokes? Isn't it a bit awkward under the table?"  
Brahe smirked. "He has a clever mouth. My guests often praise him for his psychic powers. He seems to know exactly what will amuse each of them. They find his presence quite pleasurable."  
Cecil frowned for a few seconds then his face cleared and he sniggered. "O-o-oh!"  
Brahe grinned and added, "Also, he looks after my elk when she gets drunk."  
Cecil smiled. "Your Elk? Is that a pet name for someone? Your wife?"  
Brahe roared with laughter. "My dear, you are quite the jester yourself I think. No, my wife does not attend my dinner parties and would be quite insulted that you thought the name _Elk_ a term of endearment for her. No, my elk is my companion. She sits with me by the fire in winter and I feed her carrots and spent hops. I send her visiting on my behalf when leaving my castle to meet with a bore like Stefan of Carl's Burgh is too tiresome to contemplate. But her failing is that she is overfond of beer."  
Cecil grinned. "I see! I have Khoshekh, he's my baby boy. He floats in the mens' room so I can't really send him to visit my brother in law, Steve the Jerk."

Cecil's phone beeped. "Carlos says he will have to wait for our pizza and asks can we entertain each other for fifteen minutes."  
Brahe pointed at Cecil's phone. "What is that thing?"  
Cecil tried to explain, simplified, simplified again and eventually said, "look." He stood next to Brahe, pulled him into a one-armed hug, held his phone out and took a selfie. "Now look, that's you and me." Brahe stared at the screen.  
"That really is a lovely nose. Do you think I am handsome?"  
Cecil nodded and sent the selfie to Carlos's printer. Tycho wondered at the texture of the paper, rubbing it and rolling it between thumb and forefinger, then rolled the picture before stowing it in his clothing. He stared at Cecil openly.  
"Do you want me to show you how Jepp the Jester keeps my guests in such good spirits?"

The lab door banged and Carlos appeared with a large pizza box. He called out, "Hi guys, want to sit down and have a proper dinner party? Oh! you're there already." Carlos smiled at Brahe, who sat at the table with a slightly flustered face, and Cecil, who stood by the sink in the lab break area. Carlos continued, "great idea, honey, bring some water, unless there's beer in the fridge? Although we shouldn't really do science and drink."  
Cecil walked over with three opened bottles, smiled at Carlos and winked at the red-faced, smirking Dane. "Hey, Carlos, want me to show you what Tycho's jester does at dinner?"


	2. Alchemists of Alexandria

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos gets double what he bargained for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started writing this as "ha ha what if Carlos brought back a female scientist? Awkward!" style fic, but the more I read about what life must have been like in 1st-3rd century CE for women, the more I wanted to write about that.

Carlos tinkered with his ultra-scientific Time and Space Machine while Cecil lurked in the break area, banished for being "too distracting" and "disrupting the progress of science". Cecil complained, "but I came here for _science!"_ Carlos would not be swayed by hugs and kisses and, Cecil surmised, it was the little light grinding that resulted in Carlos's back resting against his control panel that got Cecil banned from approaching within six feet of his favourite scientist. For now. 

He could talk, though. Narration was his life.

_Good evening, Listener! I am reporting live from the very scientifically impressive laboratory of my very scientific and, indeed, very impressive boyfriend... Ca-arlos! He is so clever and handsome and he is busy with his latest invention. He is polishing off the fingermarks I left on his upright tube earlier with eager rubbing motions. He is so hard at work I don't want to interrupt in case something blows up in my face. Again. Ahemhem. Carlos, my favourite scientist and, by extension since I have no experience of emotions other than my own and I happily, gleefully project those on my surrounding community, Night Vale's favourite scientist, informs me that he is constructing a mobile module for his Time and Space Machine._

_Listener, I am sure with a little imagination we could come up with a better name for it than that. I mean, come on, do we call television the "uhIdunnowhaddayouwannawatch box"? Is radio the "voice machine?" Is your phone called a "selfie poster"? No! No, listener, we should put our minds together to think up a better name for such a wonderful invention. Last week it brought us a delightful Dane..._

_Oh, listener. Ooooh listener! I think your humble and currently non-scientific radio host is in trouble with his boyfriend! Beautiful, lovely Carlos, concentrate on the wonders ahead, not the weaknesses and too, too human failings behind._

Carlos stood up straight, whirled round to face Cecil, who ceased his narration from the absolute closest Carlos allowed, and drew in a breath to yell.  
"I DID IT!" Carlos grinned from ear to ear. "I made a portable temporospatial conduit! Next time I bring a scientist from somewhere in the past into Night Vale now, they will not have to remain within fifteen feet of the main device as long as we carry this portable spatiotemporal field expander with us."  
Cecil let out a soft whoop. "What is it called?"  
Carlos frowned. "What sounds better? More scientific?"  
_"Portable spatiotemporal field expander_ sounds better, but can't you give it a snappier name?" Cecil sat on his usual workbench perch and stroked his chin. "Hmmm, I'm a scientist. Hmmm I'm thinking..."  
Carlos threw his polishing rag at Cecil. Cecil caught it, threw it back and grinned. "Oh I know! You can call it the _Spacetime Expanding Communication Sensing_ Machine."  
Carlos laughed. "Sure, honey. We will call it the _SECS_ Machine. I still have some adjustments to make, it's real important not to distract me. This one is tricky."

Cecil watched for a few more minutes as Carlos tapped dials, adjusted sliders, swept the danger area, ramped up the power until mains hum was almost unbearable, turned to face him with one hand on the big red switch with the _do not touch_ label below it, embossed white on a green sticky plastic strip, and the other hand outstretched in invitation. Cecil slid down, took two steps toward the smiling scientist and held his hand.  
"You want to do this? You want to turn it on?"  
Cecil nodded. "Will that help me turn on a scientist?"  
Carlos grinned as they swapped places and murmured in Cecil's ear, "sure will!"

Cecil cocked an eyebrow at Carlos, who nodded.  
"Go ahead!"  
He flicked the switch. They stood back and watched as sparks danced around the perimeter of the danger area and the fog formed. Carlos frowned, staring into the nebula.  
Cecil tugged his lab-coat sleeve. "Is something wrong?"  
"I don't know, Cecil can you see two shapes forming or only one? Looks like two to me."  
Cecil peered at the swirling, coalescing mist. He stepped closer, only to be pulled back by Carlos.  
"Mmhmm looks like two smaller shapes. Were you expecting only one?"  
Carlos shrugged. "Better turn up the power. If we have caught two scientists that would be so awesome! But to lose them into the void might be a disaster. Imagine..." Carlos peered at a large dial and pushed a slider up, watching the needle quiver behind yellowing glass, "... Imagine I caught a scientist like Gregor Mendel and scattered his constituent particles into the void by accident before he had a chance to publish his work on inheritance in peas. His fellow monks would have eaten his peas without bothering to notice whether they were smooth or wrinkled, green or yellow, whether the plants were tall or short with flowers that were red or white or pink... our understanding of inheritance in this timeline could be altered dramatically!"  
Cecil shrugged and pulled a face. "Never liked peas much anyway."

The extra power input increased the swirling and condensing fog until two figures formed, smaller than average for Night Vale, standing very close together. They solidified and grew features as Cecil watched them and Carlos watched his dials. Carlos bit his lip and gave the power slider one last nudge. With a pop, a fizz and the scent of overheating electricals, the machine powered down. Two people stood in the danger area.

Cecil stared.  
_Two_ scientists.  
Two _naked_ scientists.  
Standing _really_ close together.  
Touching noses.  
Kissing.

Carlos frowned at the machine, removed a panel by the power input socket and started pulling out wires, ouching and shaking his fingers at the temperature. "Huh, that was unexpected. I hope I have not damaged the timeline of chemical advancement by accidentally removing an alchemist or two. I suppose their work was completed before the great library was destroyed, so little of their writings exist to this day. I guess it might not make a difference although they paved the way for Hypatia and a few others."  
Cecil gaped. "Uh, uhnnng... Carlos?"  
"What is it honey? I worry when you of all people are stuck for words, you big blabbermouth! I need to fix this, change a few of the burnt out components. Ugh, could take an hour."  
"CARLOS!"  
"What?"

Carlos lifted his head. Cecil pointed. Stepping out of the danger area he saw two naked women with faces like fire and thunder.  
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT MIGHT NOT MAKE A DIFFERENCE!" The darker woman yelled at Carlos, her fury balling her fists and raising her to her full stature of slightly below the level of Cecil's shoulder.  
Carlos yelped. "Wh... how? How? Oh! Cecil, the _SECS_ Machine is blinking! It works! Uh, hello ladies, I assure you I meant no disrespect, your work in alchemy is famous to this day! Cecil, these women are Mary the Jewess and Cleopatra the Alchemist."  
Both women took a deep breath in. The paler one swished her sleek, black ponytail back over her shoulder and spoke. "You may not call us that. Cleopatra is my nickname for her because she's Egyptian and my princess. Jewess is her nickname for me. You may call me Maryam. Clee?"  
The darker woman showed a row of white teeth. "I do not wish to reveal my identity, how can I trust these men? You may call me Clee. Who in the name of Amun-Ra are you?"

Carlos gushed. "It is so lovely to meet a pair of fine, scientific ladies! Maryam, Clee, my name is Carlos the Scientist and this is Cecil Palmer. He is our town's most famous radio celebrity."  
Clee and Maryam frowned at each other. "I know what you are, Carlos." Clee said with a flat tone. She pointed at Cecil. "I have no idea what he is."  
Carlos stroked his chin. "Hmmm. He, um, tells stories for a living. And tells people all over town if there is anything important happening."  
Maryam nodded. "Clee, I think he's like that Roman bigmouth our governor hired to inform us of all the stupid new laws he's passing. What's his name again?"  
Clee rolled her eyes. "Ugh, Stefanus Carlbergius. I hate that man. What an ass. I swear by Tapputi's tits, the next time he tells me I have to cover up on a hot day in my own alchemy shop because nakedness is a sin and distracting to men, I will kick him in the--"  
"About that, ladies," Carlos interrupted before the discussion got painfully anatomical. "Would you like lab-coats? I do not find your form distracting, you are comparatively lovely ladies, but it is probably not as warm in here are you are used to." Carlos held out two small sized white coats. The women accepted them, scowling at Carlos, grimaced at the fabric texture but marvelled at the popper fastenings.  
Clee frowned. "Lovely compared with what, exactly? Because my Jewess is the most beautiful creature. Just look at that belly. It has all the marks to show that it has held three babes and her breasts... Mmm. There is a body with a story attached." Clee stroked Maryam's stomach and kissed her nose. Maryam smiled with her hand over her mouth. Clee pulled her wrist away. "Everyone knows you lose teeth when you have babies. Never be ashamed of that. We have a beautiful boy who will grow up to respect alchemists like his mothers."

Carlos flustered. "You are both very lovely! It's just that Cecil and I... well... we are..."  
Maryam observed the way Cecil averted his eyes from their unashamed nudity and Carlos watched him. She laughed. "Oh you're Greek? You should have said right away."  
Carlos scratched his head. "No, we are not Greek. Cecil is from here, I am not. But we do live together."  
Clee frowned. "You should be careful who you tell. This religion the Romans are forcing on us all is even more strict than Maryam's. They only recognise male and female. They have a book that details all the things you may not do. Women may not dress in men's clothing. Men may not lie with men as with women. Women must obey their husbands in all things. And there are whole pages about mildew." Maryam giggled and Clee grinned. "Good thing it says nothing about women lying with women. We'd be fucked."  
Maryam snorted, "Or not. They were fine before, bought our perfumes and mostly stayed out of our way."  
The women put on their lab-coats and twirled for each other.

Carlos wanted to talk about science. Cecil wanted to eat. Clee wanted to discuss family. Maryam got the casting vote.  
"I am hungry, Carlos the Scientist. Is it considered acceptable to eat and converse? Clee, we have discussed this so often! You are young and strong and can call on the services of the royal goddess Hathor for protection. I have almost died three times and lost two girls under the protection of God and Tawaret. I can't go through that again. I have our little Ziv to care for. If you also cannot face risking your life for a bigger brood, there are always families with more mouths than means."  
Clee looked away. "It is not the risk of carrying a child that concerns me, I want that! I want to feel it alive within me and suffer your pain, deliver it into your arms in the bower!" She glanced at Cecil and back to Maryam. "But the process of becoming pregnant... I can't. I can't do that even for a child of our own. Maybe if I could guarantee to become pregnant after one time I could face it but you had to fuck every day for a season each time until the sickness made you sure. And if I do it, who would I choose? What if he wants to interfere? Take the child?"  
Cecil cleared his throat. "Have either of you lady-scientists heard of sperm donors?"

Carlos returned to say Rico's was open, he'd made sure to order kosher and their favourite booth was available. He asked Cecil to bring his _SECS_ Machine and led the group next door to the restaurant. Maryam marvelled at the huge, glazed windows and the opulence of the brightly dyed fabrics.  
"The owner must be rich! Clee, maybe we should quit alchemy and open a restaurant in the nice part of town. Look at those reds and blues! You know it took me years to perfect that purple dye I extracted and I got almost no thanks from the royal family. Only Clee saw how important my work was and came with-- Ow! Hey!"  
Clee kicked Maryam under the table. "Secret identity, hiding from family, don't want to marry my brother, any of that familiar?"  
Maryam laughed. "Oh look around, Clee, I doubt we could be farther from them here. We are in a room full of strangely dressed people, in the company of Nyankh-khnum and Khnum-hotep, and nobody cares. Nobody even looked at us. This one," she pointed at Carlos, "knows alchemy. A man! Alchemy! What next, men in the birthing bower?"  
Their waitress arrived with pizza. Maryam poked it and declared it "a bit like flatbread but weird", made sure there was no shellfish or banned meats on it and tucked in, slurping off the topping and discarding the base. Clee ate in quiet thought. Carlos asked about alchemy.

"How did you ladies get involved in such a scientific business?"  
Maryam stroked her chin. "Hmmm, I started out in the perfume business. I improved on a distillery design of Tapputi's from a description in an ancient stone tablet. It must have been real old, the runes were difficult to decipher in places. I added some copper plating for strength and changed the design of the fittings between all the different shaped parts to that they fit together better. My alembic, my distillation system, is completely sealed so I can distill pure essential oils from almost anything."  
Carlos listened closely. "Oh that is so cool! You're an inventor too! Cecil, did you hear that? Maryam is an inventor and a scientist like me!" He turned back to Maryam, "I must show you my uni-fit kit in the lab next door after dinner. It's made from borosilicate glass and ground at the edges for an airtight seal. Such a simple and clever design. What do you use as a heat source?"

Maryam stroked her chin again. "I use a charcoal furnace for hot work, but I have a device that allows me to moderate the temperature for more delicate substances where the heat from charcoal or even wood might spoil the scent. I designed a system that heats water, then the hot water flows down pipes and warms my boiler. My fellow alchemical sisters call it _Marie's Bath_ because why waste hot water? The flow goes to a tub and we bathe in it at the end of the day.  
Carlos laughed with delight. "We have those! But on a small scale. It is still called a Bain Marie. Everyone knows your name, Maryam. You are famous!"  
Maryam smiled and hid her mouth again. "I am not the only inventor. You should see the alembic my dear Clee has designed! She is so beautifully skilled in both glass blowing and metalworking. We plan to use it for the most precious oils only."  
Carlos smiled at Maryam's pride in her companion. "I suppose working in Egypt must get hot."  
Maryam nodded. "Often we work naked. Clothing can catch on delicate equipment and break it, catch fire if a stray hem touches embers, soak up the sweat of our labours and stink. Nudity is far more hygienic and safer. Even in winter, we work nude. Our winter heating comes from a way I devised of converting weak heat from the Sun into a stronger heat source that is safe. When dung is heated gently it begins to ferment and warms the air." Maryam grinned. "Our city is rich in dung."

 

Meanwhile, Cecil watched Clee. "You're an alchemist too?"  
She nodded. "Yes. Maryam came to the palace one day to show my family a new purple dye she extracted. She showed me that there could be an existence for women that did not centre around producing royal heirs. I followed her disguised as a servant with my chest bandaged under a rough tunic, no wig on my head or cosmetics on my face. I thought she would send me back but she said she needed an assistant. We learned from each other. I taught Maryam about plants and poisons, she taught me about metals and perfumes. I have written many accounts of our experiences extracting gold from plants and lodged them safely in the halls of the Great Library."  
Cecil shuddered. "Ugh, librarians. Ugh."  
Clee hugged herself. "I know, right?"  
"Nobody minds that you walk around naked?" Cecil averted his eyes as he said naked.  
Clee laughed. "It is practical. This garment," Clee pulled at her borrowed lab-coat, "itches and flaps. I could not work wearing this."  
Cecil frowned. "Do male alchemists work nude too? That might be hazardous."  
"Male alchemists?" Clee sniggered. "We do not have male alchemists. The only males in our work compound are the boys, children like our Ziv who are cared for while their mothers work."  
Cecil smiled. "I wonder if Carlos would consider working naked."  
Carlos heard his name. "What's that, honey?"  
Clee laughed. Cecil smiled. "Oh, nothing sweetheart. We were just chatting about the differences between Clee's working conditions and yours. Especially regarding hot weather and protective outerwear. Should we go back to the lab?"

Cecil opened the fridge and uncapped four beers. He brought them to the table.  
"Sorry, ladies, Carlos doesn't have any glasses. He is not used to spending time with women."  
Carlos frowned. "You're forgetting Rochelle, Cecil."  
"Oh!" Cecil shrugged. "She's not a woman. She's a scientist." He looked up at Carlos. "Like you."  
Carlos stared for a few seconds as Cecil pushed bottles towards Maryam and Clee. "Cecil, our guests are scientists and women. Like Rochelle."  
Cecil drank. "Huh. No, they are alchemists. There must be a difference."  
"How do you reach that conclusion, sweetie?"  
"Well... you know how I am _really into scientists?"_ Carlos nodded. "Turns out alchemists do not have quite the same effect." Cecil looked from Clee to Maryam and back. "No offence was intended by me, although you appear to have received it from the expressions on your faces."  
Clee scowled at Carlos. "You sound just like the Roman asswipe. Everyone neatly fitted into male or female." She nodded to Cecil. "You have a view that better matches mine. There are more than two genders. Egyptians have known that since the beginning of time. I am surprised a _scientist_ does not know that."

Carlos apologised for his careless assumptions. He tackled Maryam. "You know, there is one piece of your writing that has become famous. Perhaps you can explain it to me. In a treatise about sorting metals by their properties, you wrote _join the male to the female and find what is sought._ I have often wondered what you meant because there are so many ways of sorting metals that..."  
Carlos stopped because Clee was laughing so hard she almost wept. Maryam wheezed with her hand over her mouth and her eyes closed. After a minute or two, Clee calmed enough to speak.  
"Oh glorious Amun-Ra, Oh beautiful Seth, Oh mother Tapputi's tremendous twat... Mary my love, you are forever famous for a bathing device and the advice you gave young Anouk before her first time fraternising with that pretty centurion. Did the papyrus also have her drawings? The symbols Mary added to illustrate the, uh, joining of the male to the female?"  
Carlos shrugged. "I did not see any diagrams, just some crude hieroglyphs." Clee dissolved into giggles again. "Are you telling me that Maryam's most famous quotation is a... umm... a sex joke?"  
Maryam dried her eyes and nodded.  
"An effective one too. Anouk is so proud of her little one. She birthed it in an afternoon on her knees in the bower, claimed _Marie's bath_ just for herself and the babe and came back to work two days later with it strapped to her chest. If only it was always so easy."

Clee drank from her bottle quietly again. Carlos excused himself, saying he had to tinker with his equipment, which made Cecil and Maryam snigger. Maryam looked around, got up and walked between the benches, picking things up to examine and putting them down once she had recognised what they were, or deduced their purpose. Cecil sat with Clee, lips pulled into a tight line, brow wrinkled.  
"I did not mean to offend you. Neither did Carlos."  
Clee shook her head. "Things have been tense since the Romans decided this religion provided a means to their ends. Recently being an alchemist is seen as evil, a challenge to the authority of their god. Being a woman without a man is seen as unnatural. Having a female body with breasts and a rounded belly and wide hips and a glorious arse is said to be shameful and we are told to hide ourselves." Clee removed her lab-coat and stood, lustrous smooth black skin with taut muscles beneath, tight curls of hair below a soft stomach. Cecil looked away. "Do you find my body shameful?"  
Cecil shook his head and looked back, meeting Clee's gaze. "No, not at all. You are beautiful. I'm just not used to seeing naked women. You and Maryam are, like, the second and third naked female bodies I have ever seen." He sighed and rolled his eyes. "I kinda want to forget the first because, boy, was that a big mistake!"  
Clee laughed. "Fortunately I met my Mary before my family thought of testing my fertility by allowing my brother to plant his seed in my garden and seeing if anything grew." Cecil shuddered. Clee frowned. "You said words earlier that I did not understand. What is a _sperm donor?"_

Maryam watched Carlos work, replacing components and poking probe leads into the tangle of wires to find broken connections. He stood up and stretched then carefully replaced the cover over the panel. Maryam examined the dials, all set to zero.  
"Is this the invention that brought us to you?"  
Carlos smiled and nodded. "Yes. It is a spatiotemporal field generator. The device blinking on the desk there is a _SECS_ machine, a Spacetime Expanding Communication Sensing machine. It brings you here, holds your existence stable and translates for us."  
Maryam looked at it. "Will it send us back again safely? I miss Ziv. He will get a fantastical story tonight!"  
"Oh! Yes, yes of course. I would never tinker with the spacetime continuum like that, you will be returned when the energy drain is too great. You can see a fog?"  
Maryam nodded. "It has been at the edges of my vision but I thought it was just a weather thing. We get fogs from the river sometimes. It is more noticeable now than it was when we arrived."  
"Ah, that happens. I can power up and put it off for you for an hour or two, but you will both have to go back soon. Is there anything you want to ask, before that happens?"  
Maryam frowned, turned her head slightly and looked sideways at Carlos. "Hmmm." She stroked her chin and looked over at Clee, deep in discussion with red-faced Cecil. "Perhaps there is something you, or he, can do for me. For us."

Later, much later, after arguments, embarrassment, a lesson in anatomy and eventual forgiveness, Carlos and Cecil lay awake. Cecil rolled onto his side, facing Carlos. He propped himself up on one elbow and watched the light reflected from Carlos's eyes. Carlos blinked.  
"Carlos, did we do the right thing?"  
"I think we did some things right, Cecil, but not everything."  
"Can we ever know?"  
"No, if our actions had any effect we wouldn't know the difference. A temporal paradox can't exist. It would right itself somehow. If I went back in time and killed my grandmother, it would turn out that she had not been my grandmother after all. Our reality would be different, but we could not say how." Carlos smiled. Cecil leaned down and kissed him lightly.  
"So it was totally okay to explain ovulation to Clee and show Maryam how to use a plastic syringe with the pointy bit smoothed off to introduce semen into Clee's vagina."  
Carlos sniggered. "Cecil! Your command of scientific vocabulary has expanded this evening. I am so glad you stopped calling it _the flower in her garden_ and referring to menstruation as _Aunt Flo's visit."_  
Cecil smiled. "It is not a topic I ever found reason to discuss before. So... did you?"  
Carlos sat up and laughed. "Sweet glowing cloud, no. Did you?"  
"No. I would have but I had a malfunction in the downstairs plumbing."  
"Ceece!"  
"Okay! okay. Clee was real nice, a bit scary, but I'd get started thinking about you then I'd think about her and... no. Just no. Besides, what of one of us had turned out to be our own ancestor? That would be weird, right?"  
Carlos lay down again. "The void would have intervened, time would be different and it couldn't happen. Probably. Subtle changes, Cecil, we wouldn't even know about it."  
"Huh. It's a good thing they had those plastic syringes back in ancient Alexandria. If you hadn't known about that one found in an underwater excavation last week you wouldn't have been able to let Maryam take one with her."  
Carlos closed his eyes. "Subtle changes, Cecil."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sources:
> 
> http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_the_Jewess  
> http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopatra_the_Alchemist  
> http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapputi  
> http://www.womenintheancientworld.com/pregnancy%20and%20childbirth.htm


	3. Robert Boyle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robert Boyle. Natural philosopher, polymath, enthusiastic convert to his religion.  
> A real man of his times.
> 
> Carlos doesn't think that's an acceptable excuse for anything.

Carlos hummed and his machine hummed back. Cecil draped an arm over Carlos’s shoulder.  
“Sounds better, I think, Ceece? You think it sounds better?”  
Cecil aped Carlos’s stance, stroking his chin. “Hmmm, yes it does. Quieter.”  
“Yeah. Rico complained about the noise last night after we fired it up.”  
Cecil grinned. “Are you sure it was the sound of your machine or, maybe, something else?”  
Carlos smiled. “I was far too busy to concentrate. Busy with _science_ , of course.”  
“Mmhmm I remember. I‘m glad I persuaded you to give me some _hands-on experience.”_  
Carlos looped an arm around Cecil’s waist. He frowned at the dials and sliders on the control panel in front of him. “There is one scientist I’d really like to meet. He did all sorts of things and I want to ask him so many questions. So _many_!”  
Cecil leaned in to Carlos’s side, delighted by his boyfriend’s unusual combination of moods. “Can I stay right here while you set up your experiment? You won’t banish me to the break area like you normally do?”  
Carlos hugged Cecil and kissed his cheek. “You can stay right here, honey. Just… don’t touch anything.”  
“Oh.” Cecil mock-pouted and slid a hand southwards. “Not even _this_?” Carlos laughed and grabbed Cecil’s straying hand.  
”Ceece, please honey, I want to but I have work to do!”  
Cecil rested his head against Carlos’s shoulder and sighed.  
“I’ll be in the break area.”

Carlos closed his eyes for a couple of seconds, took a deep breath and stared at the settings on his sliders and the pointers in his dials. He frowned as he adjusted settings and pushed his hair back from his face to check readings. Cecil watched from a discreet distance until Carlos stood and stretched, shook out his curls, looked over and grinned. “Ready?”  
“You bet!” Cecil joined Carlos again in the specially marked out distraction–free zone. “Can I have a lab-coat?” Carlos smiled and nodded, shrugged out of his own lab-coat. Cecil put it on, still warm, and cleared his throat.

_Listeners, I am in the laboratory of our most intelligent and most handsome scientist, about to help out in another ground breaking experiment to—_

Carlos rolled his eyes. “Ceece, sweetheart, just turn it on already.”  
Cecil’s mouth turned down in disappointment. “What, no sense of occasion at all? No reporting? No announcement?”  
Carlos took Cecil’s hand. “Oh honey, if it means so much to you of course you can, but I want to be able to interview a scientist and still have time after to take you out to dinner. I was only planning on taking you out for tacos then back here for… uh, well I noticed how much you like my collection of humming electrical equipment, but if you want you can do a full report about…”  
Cecil flicked the switch.

The machine hummed louder and the familiar sparks and fog appeared within the danger area. Cecil stood back and watched as the nebulous glow coalesced into a figure. Carlos barely gave it a glance as he adjusted settings on his control panel.  
“Carlos, aren't you watching?”  
“You’re observing, if anything unusual happens you will tell me and I can come watch then.” Carlos nudged a slider up a fraction, _hmm_ -ed and nodded.  
Cecil continued to stare at the swirling cloud. “You think this is not unusual just on its own? Wow! Come on, Carlos! How can you miss this?”

Carlos stepped over to Cecil’s side and put an arm around his waist. After another minuscule adjustment to the power settings, and a stolen kiss, a man stood in the danger area.  
He was not happy.

“What manner of demons are you! What have you done with me!” He looked around him, turning his head left and right, revolving fully once. “Where is this place! I was… I was in my laboratory with young Hooke. Where is he?”  
Cecil watched, mouth slightly open, eyes wide as the man’s long curls bobbed as if animated by some life force of their own. He stood back and grinned, eyebrows high, taking in the sight of the scientist. Carlos stepped forward. “Sir, sir please do not be alarmed. You are safe. Are you telling me that you were in your lab with Robert Hooke? That is so great! Have you been working on your pneumatic pumping mechanism?”  
The man took two steps backward until his back hit the workbench behind him.  
“HOW DO YOU KNOW?” He demanded. “I HAVE YET TO PUBLISH OUR WORK!” He slid down the front of the bench to the floor, Carlos and Cecil rushed to either side. Carlos crouched beside him. Cecil reached a hand to the man’s shoulder. He tried to shuffle out of the way. “NO! Do not lay a finger on me, demon!”

Carlos and Cecil stepped back. The man stood up and watched them warily. Cecil glanced at Carlos and frowned. Carlos shrugged. “I suppose someone had to freak out eventually. Cecil, honey, this is the eminent Robert Boyle. He discovered and invented all sorts of stuff and suggested even more inventions that have been made already. He’s real famous.” Carlos looked at Boyle. “Mr Boyle, My name is Carlos the Scientist, you would probably say natural philosopher, and this is my lab. This man,” Carlos pulled Cecil closer with a hand on his waist, “is Cecil Palmer. He’s a…a...”  
Cecil smiled and stuck out his hand. “I’m a radio host and I’m _really_ into science. You hair is _magnificent_. Is it real?”

Boyle was flabbergasted. "You are... you are... most proficient in your use of my most noble tongue although I confess your manner of speaking it is strange to my ears and your impertinence is scarce fathomable. My, um my hair is real, it is a wig of the latest London fashion. I surmise my Lord God has brought me here--"  
"No," Cecil butted in, "that was totally Carlos's machine. He invented it and built it, I flicked the big red switch. See?" Cecil pointed. Boyle stared at him. "So it's a wig? Carlos has beautiful hair. Does it get hot under all that hair? Is it real heavy? Do you wear it all the time? Can I tou--"  
"Ceece! Enough!"  
"Sorry, sweetie."

Boyle frowned at Cecil. "Such impudence! From your appearance and mode of dress, you are infidels. It is my duty to God to set you on the path to your redemption! I have translations of the Holy Book printed in various of the Algonquian dialects. Perhaps if you are able to read you would benefit from close study of the Bible." Cecil frowned as he processed Boyle's words. But Boyle was not finished. "And you my man," he turned to Carlos, "claim to be a natural philosopher like me? How do you make that assertion?"

Cecil erupted. "HOW DARE YOU QUESTION CARLOS LIKE THAT! HE IS A SCIENTIST!"  
Carlos nodded and folded his arms. "That is what I am. And Cecil here is the smartest, most eloquent radio presenter I have ever met!"  
Cecil spun around to face Carlos. "Aw babe, you mean that?"  
Carlos smiled, "Of course I do, Ceece, honey!" He waved a finger at Boyle. "You can shove your prejudice up your... fundamental. It's not sixteen fifty here! It's... it's... much later than that."  
Cecil nodded. "Much later. You could probably work that out, mister high and mighty natural philosopher, if you looked outward."  
Carlos offered Boyle an arm. "Want to see my lab? Will that convince you?"

Boyle ignored the proffered limb but accepted a tour of the lab, keeping six wary feet away from Carlos. Cecil watched them from the break area, Carlos moving forward, grinning with enthusiasm showing Boyle some or other piece of equipment and explaining rapid-fire what it was. By the time Carlos finished showing off, it was getting dark outside. Cecil turned the lights on.

Boyle stared at the strip-lights in the ceiling. Cecil turned them off and on again a few times until Carlos asked him to stop. "Perpetual light!" Boyle was entranced. "You have perpetual light! I have a list, a list of inventions that would ease existence. Perpetual light is in prime position. Oh, to have that, no more peering at papers in dim candle light! No more having to finish prematurely my discourse with young Hooke because I can barely make out his features! Carlos the scientist, how does this perpetual light work? Is it an alchemical process, maybe a reaction that releases a glow? A phosphor?"  
Carlos laughed. "Oh no, I can't tell you that. It is not a chemical reaction but a phosphor is important. And electricity. And mercury."  
Boyle shuddered at the word mercury. "But not sulphur? Swear that you are not taunting me with the work of an ignorant spagyrist like Stephen Karl-Burgh!"  
"No," Carlos smiled. "I can tell you the spagyrists are totally barking up the wrong tree."

This revelation amused Boyle somewhat. Carlos and Boyle joined Cecil in the break area. Cecil smiled with his mouth only. "Want me to read out to you? To prove I can?"  
Boyle shook his head. "I apologise for my error. I am used to illustrations from the New World showing savage In--"  
"DO NOT FINISH THAT SENTENCE!"  
Cecil stared at Carlos, who was poised to clamp a hand over Boyle's mouth if necessary.  
"Carlos, he's from a more brutal time. He doesn't know. We can send him back better educated." Cecil grinned. "Or you can slap him into next week, honestly, I'm happy either way."  
Carlos clenched his fists. "Ignorance is never an excuse, Cecil. Never."  
Cecil smiled. "I know honey, but if we can educate this racist jerk instead of acting like the savages he assumes we are, maybe we can achieve something." Cecil waited for Carlos to nod once in agreement, leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. "You were going to take us out for dinner, weren't you?"  
Carlos took a deep breath. "Yeah. Tacos!" He continued quietly, " _but I swear by the Brownstone Spire that I may struggle with my patience if he insults you again."_

The three men walked the short distance to Jerry's Tacos. Carlos and Boyle sat on plastic chairs at a plastic table while Cecil ordered. Boyle stroked and tapped the table, tried to mark the chair with his fingernail. "What manner of material is this?" Before Carlos could explain to his satisfaction, Cecil returned with three taco dinners. Boyle felt the texture of the wax paper, the softness of the napkins and wondered at the lavish use of colour printing. He eyed the tacos with a combination of interest and distrust, but smiled when he ate. "For such opulence of flavour and colour, for such use of fine material compounds, for a town displaying such a show of wealth, the people are poorly dressed. Has fashion abandoned the cravat and the waistcoat? OOH!"

Boyle closed his eyes as two young women waltzed in, giggling and calling to the boy behind the counter. Boyle turned so that he could not see them. "I am shocked that the matron of their bordello would allow her girls out in such a state of undress."  
Cecil frowned. "That's Maureen and Michelle. They are friends of mine. What is the problem? Shorts and teeshirts are very practical in the heat. You look like you are about to melt or pass out."  
Carlos nodded. "Cecil looks awesome in a cravat and a waistcoat but he only wears those for special broadcasts." Carlos grinned. "So tell us about your knowledge of bordelloes."  
Boyle snorted. "I did my Grand Tour with my brother and a family friend as chaperon. At the tender age of not quite fifteen years, my brother and chaperon decided I should be made a man and took me with them to the local bordelloes in Florence."  
Cecil almost choked on his Nothings Dew. "You, umm, did it with prostitutes when you were fourteen?"  
Boyle laughed. "Have I shocked you? I promise I retained there my unblemished chastity and returned from my visits as honest as I arrived."  
Cecil mopped up his spilled drink. Carlos giggled. Boyle continued. "I paid the ladies for their time but felt no urge to earn it with anything other than discussion of the marbles of Santa Croce or the architecture of the Uffizi and the works of Michelangelo and Leonardo within. I walked where the greats walked, sat where they sat."  
Cecil smiled. "So you are not married?"  
"No," Boyle shook his head. "I am thirty so it is expected that I will marry soon, though I have no ambition in that direction. Instead give me my work, my study and discourse with such as young Hooke to occupy me." Carlos frowned but did not speak. Cecil suggested they walk back to the lab.

They left Jerry's Tacos with a wave to Michelle and Maureen. Alerted by noise, Boyle looked up at the sky. He screamed, as other sometimes did, but with delight. "Flying machines! Are they Leonardo's devices?"  
Carlos smiled, "not quite."  
Cecil frowned. "Ignore it. Too dark to see what colour it was."  
For the entire walk home to Carlos's lab, Boyle babbled excitedly about his list of necessary inventions. He had seen perpetual light and now a flying machine. He quizzed Carlos about whether he could see _ways of making armour light and extremely hard_ , or try out _potent drugs to alter or exalt imagination, appease pain, procure innocent sleep with harmless dreams._ Carlos refused to comment.

Back in the lab break area, Cecil fetched beer from the apartment Carlos still kept upstairs for nights when science would not let him go, or afternoons when science was slack but Cecil was so delightfully distracting. Boyle accepted one. And a second, after being directed to the bathroom and enthusing about plumbing for ten minutes. By halfway down the third, Boyle was relaxed and chatty. Carlos tackled him again about marriage.  
"You prefer not to marry?"  
Boyle shook his head. "If it is God’s plan for me to marry, I will marry. But if He should not plan for my life to take that path, I offer prayers of gratitude to Him."  
Carlos angled his head slightly. "Do you not like the company of women?"  
Boyle frowned. "I like them well enough! My sister is a perfect example of her kind. Intelligent, learned, polite in speech and manners as long as we have company. She assists me in my work sometimes and makes most enlightening comments."  
Cecil smiled. "Your sister is a scientist too?"  
Boyle looked up. "I suppose she is a natural philosopher of sorts."  
Carlos continued his questioning. "Tell me about Hooke."  
Boyle's face lit up. "Young Robert has the most singular mind! He is a collector of ideas and information. He stores up everything he sees, everything he hears, and turns it into something of such exquisite promise! I hold him in very high regard. The highest."  
Cecil sniggered. "Sounds like he is your favourite scientist!"  
Boyle nodded. "Indeed. I wish he could have come with me to see all you have shown me. Wonders such as I have seen are made better if shared."  
Cecil regained his composure. "Carlos is my favourite scientist." He stroked Carlos's face and kissed him.

Boyle tried to rise out of his seat but fell heavily back into it.  
"No! Not like that! There is nothing unnatural in our friendship!" Boyle reddened and gripped the chair. "I would not, could not sully our mutual regard with such behaviour! It is not in my nature. Ugh, even the mere thought turns my stomach! We are friends, yes, we behave as friends do. We walk arm in arm, we greet each other with a kiss. We sit together late, talking and burning too much oil. We share accommodations when convenience dictates, but I could never take pleasure from..."  
Carlos held an arm out. "Okay! I get it!"  
Boyle barely noticed. "Such perversion of nature crossed my path only once and I recognised the Devil in it. Not long after we entered Italy from Geneva, I was enjoying a rare taste of freedom from my chaperon when two men dressed like friars accosted me. Oh! The way they grasped at me, the things they said they would do to me! I feared for my life. I escaped, I ran. God forgive, strengthen my imperfect nature and smile upon me, but they were beyond my capacity for forgiveness."

Cecil scowled. “Are you saying that for me to love Carlos is _perverted?_ ”  
Boyle nodded with sufficient vigour to make his curls bob. “Yes indeed, if you engage in acts of fornication! God has sent me to you to save your souls from a certain eternity burning in Hell! To convert Infidels to the Christian Religion is a work of great Charity and kindness to men.”  
Carlos clenched his fists. “But you love Hooke! How is that different?”  
Boyle sighed and rubbed his eyes before meeting Carlos’s angry stare with a cool shrug. “I have no desire for Hooke, and he has none for me other than our deep but chaste mutual friendship. My love for Hooke is unlike that of the two friars who accosted me.”  
Cecil threw up his hands and almost yelled. “That was not love! That was assault! Love does not force or coerce, love just happens! Those men knew nothing about love! You can’t judge us by their behaviour.”  
Carlos joined in. “I love Cecil and he loves me. What else matters? What business is it of yours or your god's how we choose to express our love?"

Boyle sighed and closed his eyes for a few seconds. He smiled when he opened his eyes again. "It is written in the book of Leviticus that--"  
"NO!" Carlos barked, then softened. "Not there, what does it say in the gospels? What did your god actually say?"  
Boyle frowned. "In the epistle of Saint Paul to--"  
Carlos leaned forward. "No. Not someone else's interpretation written to fit with the opinions of the age. What. Does. Your. God. Actually. Say. I recall from my childhood lessons that he said love god, love one another. He did not attach conditions."  
Boyle shifted in his seat. "My knowledge of scripture is extensive. Christ our Lord spoke of marriage between a woman and a man for the purpose of bearing children."  
Carlos smiled. "Why are you not married with a brood of your own? By your religion, is it not your duty?"  
"Ah!" Boyle smiled. "I will obey God's direction but so far I have not been called. Our Saviour also tells of people who are not destined for marriage."  
Cecil rolled his eyes. "Really. Convenient how well that works out for you."  
Carlos glowered. "Whatever. I wanted to ask you about your work in alchemy and whether you were aware of the work of Mary the Jewess and Cleopatra the Alchemist, and ask your advice on continuing to work on forbidden projects. I wanted to discuss how you came to your distinction between compounds and mixtures, how your understanding of the nature of gases helped you and Hooke to develop your pump. But first, Mr Boyle, would you care to step over here for a moment?  
Boyle stood a little shakily and followed Carlos.  
"Would you be so kind as to kneel in that area there?" Carlos pointed at the danger area enclosed by the yellow and black warning tape. Boyle obliged.  
"I am so glad you have seen the light! Come, kneel here with me and pray for your salv--"  
Carlos flicked the big red switch and Boyle was gone.

Cecil sighed then giggled. "Is he really gone?"  
Carlos slapped both hands on his own cheeks and slid them down, pulling his features into a grimace. "Oh. My. Fucking. Glowing. Cloud. Ceece, I am so sorry. I wanted to ask so much but... No. I could not stand another minute."  
"He has definitely gone, right?" Cecil picked up the empties and walked over to the lab glass recycling bin.  
"Yes. Yes he is gone. Back to sixteen-forty-seven." Carlos shook himself, walked over to Cecil and hugged him.  
"Neat! Can we fornicate now?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sources:
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Boyle  
> http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/boyle/


	4. Galen of Pergamon

Carlos tinkered in his machine, occasionally stopping to nod and hum and tell Cecil just how scientific his improvements were.  
“Babe, with the new additions to the stabilisation module I think we can be much more precise about which time frame we explore.” Carlos wiped his face with his sleeve and beamed a perfect smile at Cecil. Cecil paused his strenuous hammering and angry chanting to say, “That’s great, honey! We don’t want another incident. That mess took ages to clear up. Your floor will never be quite the same. I mean, the viscera is gone but I know it was there.” He waved at the stained area. “Ugh. Coffee’s almost ready.”  
Carlos made a face. “Ceece, sweetie, we agreed not to talk about that any more. Anyway, I have wired in the circuitry from a spare danger meter so it will shut down automatically if there are any more power surges.” He stretched and yawned. Cecil brought over a mug of coffee. “Oh! Thanks, honey! You know, after the scare we gave Boyle perhaps we could be friendlier to our visitors?”  
Cecil shrugged. “I thought you were very welcoming.”

Carlos drained his coffee mug, declined a refill, kissed Cecil and took the mugs back to the break area. The machine, modified and rotated through a quarter turn to a freshly marked out danger area with plastic sheeting taped down, hummed a soft, even tone that Carlos only heard when someone else pointed it out to him. He smiled and raised an eyebrow at Cecil.  
“Are you ready to learn some ancient medicine?”  
Cecil smiled back. “You bet!”

Carlos approached the redesigned machine. Cecil stood back, remembering the spatter from last time when the circuitry had gone so badly, timeline-alteringly wrong. Carlos explained afterwards that it was unfortunate but probably not a disaster, his research pointed to the documented fact that the scientist who failed to materialise fully had a death certificate dated for the afternoon of the day they had whisked her from her lab. “A laboratory explosion.” He shook his head sadly. “It happens from time to time. Being a scientist has always been a dangerous profession. That is exactly why I invented the danger meter.” Cecil had hugged him close and asked him to be very careful in future.

After a little more tinkering, Carlos joined Cecil, hopping up on the lab work bench beside him.  
“Look!” he crowed, pulling out his phone and unlocking it. “I knew you were concerned that I had to be right up close to my machine to adjust all those sliders and knobs and keep an eye on the dials. So I made an app! I can operate it remotely from anywhere that has decent Wi-Fi.” He tapped the screen and showed Cecil a display of knobs and sliders. “You want to try it out? Actually I pre-set all the important parameters. All you need to do is press the big red button to turn it on.”  
Cecil grinned and let his finger hover. “You know I can’t resist turning you on.”

The machine clicked and the humming intensified.  
Cecil and Carlos watched from a safer distance than usual as the air shimmered and thickened inside the danger area. The fog coalesced in the centre, forming a column that sparked and swirled, collapsing in on itself to take shape into a rough humanoid. Carlos fiddled with his new app while Cecil watched features form and colours brighten out of the dark, dense cloud. The form moved, extending at shoulder level and retracting again, crouching and rising, twisting as if examining itself. Carlos frowned and tapped one of the sliders on his phone screen and the figure snapped into recognisable boundaries with a sharp cry.

Carlos reset the power and slid down from the bench. He walked over to the man standing looking around himself, reaching out then patting over his own clothing and skin. Carlos held out a hand. “Welcome to Night Vale!”  
Carlos beckoned the man out of the danger area as Cecil snorted and yelled over, “Hey! You stole my line!”

The man took two tentative steps forward, neck craning this way and that as if trying not to miss a single observation. Carlos smiled, beckoned Cecil over and waited until the man stopped and focused on them.  
"Cecil, this is Galen, the famous physician and surgeon." Carlos held out his hand. Galen stared at it. "Galen, my name is Carlos and this is Cecil. I am a scientist although a different kind of scientist from you as I do not study humans."  
Cecil snorted. "Oh I dunno, you like being doctor to my--"  
"Thank you Cecil! Galen, are you hungry? Would you like coffee?"  
Galen grasped Carlos's hand and held it briefly. He frowned. "I am not hungry. What is coffee?"  
Cecil's face lit up. "Coffee? You have never had coffee? Wow! How do you stay awake all night?"  
Carlos grinned. "Cecil makes great coffee. It’s a drink made from a bean that comes from Ethiopia, although you probably call that country something different I guess."  
"Carlos, how do you know where coffee comes from?" Cecil called over from the break area where he was busy counting beans and testing the weight of his coffee hammer. "You never told me you knew about coffee."  
Carlos glanced over and shrugged. "I looked it up when I found out how particular you were about your coffee. But you didn't seem interested in doing anything other than hitting the beans real hard and shouting at them."  
"Huh," Cecil looked up from his labours. "Fresh coffee should be ready by the time you've given our new friend a tour of the lab."  
Galen jumped and let out a cry as Cecil swung his hammer. "Hygeia's hands! What is he doing?"  
Carlos laughed. "Making coffee. Come on, I will show you my lab."

Carlos and Galen talked with the sound of Cecil chanting in the background. Galen looked over at the break area and frowned uncertainly from time to time. "Does your friend often suffer, Carlos?"  
Carlos looked perplexed for a couple of seconds. "Only as much as any of us suffers. We all experience some degree of suffering. I believe Cecil to have suffered but to have forgotten much of his pain." Galen shifted his gaze to Carlos, focusing on his shoulder length, glossy hair and perfectly even teeth. Carlos shrugged. "Aah, he seems to be left with a kind of background level of anguish that he has learned to ignore. Mostly."  
Galen lightly touched Carlos's arm. "Perhaps if you permit me to speak with him? I have developed a kind of talking therapy where an older, worldlier man can listen to and counsel a younger troubled creature and encourage him to reveal the secrets and passions that, if they remain hidden, will intensify his suffering. The mind and the body act as one, what ails one affects the other."  
Carlos smiled. "That is a very kind offer, sir, but Cecil... well. I think he prefers not to remember. He has nightmares from time to time that might be caused by memories but we... hmm. Sometimes I can make him forget."  
Galen sniggered. "I bet you can."  
Carlos laughed.

Cecil called over when the lab tour was almost finished. Carlos and Galen sat at the lunch table, Cecil poured and pushed mugs over to the two scientists. Carlos _mmm_ -ed over his before he took a sip.  
"Ceece this is perfect. Thanks, honey." Cecil smiled at the compliment. Galen smiled as Cecil kissed the top of Carlos's head. Their guest sniffed his drink and wrinkled his nose. He took a gulp and choked, spraying dark brown droplets over the table and Carlos.  
"Did not Hippocrates vow _I will take care that they suffer no hurt or damage, nor shall any man's entreaty prevail upon me to administer poison to anyone_? I infer, sirs, that you do not follow the Hippocratic teachings!"  
Cecil fetched a cloth and cleaned the table. "I admit my coffee is an acquired taste. Would you like another?"  
Galen shook his head rapidly and pushed his chair back. 

After coffee, Carlos offered a tour of the town and went to change into a fresh shirt. Cecil smiled at Galen.  
"So, you are a famous medic? Where did you study?"  
"My home, Pergamon, contained a library second only to that at Alexandria. I studied the works therein and travelled to Alexandria when I had exhausted my local collection." At mention of Alexandria, Cecil's eyebrows raised and he uttered a soft but inquisitive _oh?_ Galen waited but Cecil did not ask the question that had not yet settled into words. Galen continued. "Also, at sixteen years old, after two years of discourse with philosophers, my father was told by the great god Asclepius that I should study medicine. I learned the practical aspects of health at my local temple sanctuary where I learned to heal the sick who came for relief from their symptoms."  
"Huh!" Cecil poured more coffee for himself and for Galen, ignoring the man's protests. "We should take you to see Teddy Williams, our doctor. I bet he'd be interested. Carlos doesn't do any healing, he prefers to prevent people he loves from getting hurt in the first place."

Galen nodded. "A wiser man than he looks! By Aglea, is he completely yours?"  
Cecil frowned. "What do you mean?"  
Galen coughed and looked away. "Ah, I swore within the oath of Hippocrates that _Whatsoever house I may enter, my visit shall be for the convenience and advantage of the patient; and I will willingly refrain from doing any injury or wrong from falsehood, and from acts of an amorous nature_ but, Aceso knows, I see how such a man might heal the soul."  
Cecil stared at Galen for a moment, watching him take a careful sip of his coffee. The ancient medic made a face and put the mug down.  
"Are you telling me that your soul needs to be healed by Carlos?" Cecil asked, voice carefully neutral. Galen smiled, crinkling the tan skin around his deep brown eyes. He rubbed the close cropped curls on his head. He laughed.  
"A passing thought, no more. I would not act upon a desire that would harm another. I can see that you are his."

Carlos returned in coffee-free clothing. "Ready babe? I got the shirt into the sink and doused it before the stains ate through the fabric." He flashed a high-wattage smile and flicked his hair back from his face. "You two find something to talk about? Galen, Cecil is really into _science._ What have I missed?"  
Two mumbles, _nothing._

Galen was a talker. Carlos and his guest walked ahead, Galen chatting about his brand of medicine and surgery, Carlos listening and providing encouragement to talk more by asking detailed questions. Cecil trailed behind with a sour face that spoiled a little more every time Galen reached out to touch Carlos on the arm. Cecil allowed Carlos and his guest to get farther and farther ahead, becoming more despondent. He watched his feet as he walked, trying not to hear their enthusiastic discussion. 

A cry of _Whoa!_ from Carlos made Cecil’s head snap up. He saw Carlos standing arm’s length away from Galen, with his arm extended fully and his hand on Galen’s shoulder. Carlos dropped his arm and turned.  
“Ceece, come and hear Galen’s theory.” Carlos held his arm out to Cecil. Cecil trotted up to walk between them, with Carlos’s arm around his shoulder. Galen walked a couple of feet away on Cecil’s other side.

“Oh! It’s not my theory, the credit goes to Hippocrates again! He was such a genius. By Asclepius, I wish I could have had the honour of learning from him directly instead of from dry parchments in our greatest libraries. He was a great advocate of freely sharing our learning with others. It is part of the oath I took that I will spread wisdom, I will take on assistants and apprentices and teach them my skills. The Romans did not see things my way with their idea of the mind and the body as separable entities but that is another story.”  
Galen sighed and stopped walking. “I showed them all up with my practical successes. They still hinder me and hound me so much that I fear for my safety and my life at times. Ugh, give me the gladiators to heal of their wounds any day over the patrician snobs who try to tell me how to treat their poxy symptoms as if they had training and I was a servant!”  
He resumed walking slowly. “Can you believe that the Romans banned me from performing human dissections? I had to teach myself and train others in anatomy using pigs and monkeys. Why kill an animal when there are plenty of humans who no longer require their flesh and bones?”

Cecil smiled and looped his arm around Carlos’s waist, giving him a slight squeeze. Carlos responded in kind before he prompted Galen. “So-o-o, this theory of bodily humours?”  
“Ah! Yes. There are four humours: blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm. Imbalance in any one of them causes mood. I suffer from a blood imbalance which leads to my sanguine personality. In you, Carlos, I diagnose an imbalance of yellow bile, giving your choleric disposition. Cecil, I believe you to have an imbalance of phlegm. You are phlegmatic.”

Cecil frowned. “I do not have too much phlegm! Or too little! Carlos, do I have the wrong amount of phlegm? Does it annoy you? Oh! Can you hear it in my voice? Do I sound--”  
Carlos clasped Cecil’s hand at his waist. “No, honey, you’re fine. I don’t think it is meant in such a literal sense… although… Galen? What do you mean by _phlegmatic?”_  
Galen raised a hand, index finger waving at the sky.  
“A good question to ask, well done my boy.” Cecil snorted at Carlos’s flinch. “People with sanguine temperaments are social and confident in front of their peers. Choleric people, Carlos, have passion and energy. They inspire others. People of a phlegmatic disposition are affectionate and kind, people you can rely on. Or, Cecil, perhaps you are more melancholic. Your work to produce that Ethiopian bean drink was certainly creative enough to make me consider that personality trait to be yours. Perhaps you harbour two imbalances." Galen smiled and touched Cecil's arm. "Creative and kind.”

Sitting in their favourite booth at the Moonlite All Nite Diner, Carlos frowned.  
"Galen, are you not even slightly confused about where you are?"  
The man from Pergamon smiled. "I have travelled widely in my search for knowledge. I have visited many strange places and each time I adapted and survived. Can you believe, in Alexandria, the alchemists are almost all women? I tell you, Rome is backward in that capacity. No, I am not confused. I am interested."  
Cecil fidgeted in his seat by Galen's side. He half turned. "In Alexandria, did you ever hear anything of Cleopatra and--"  
"Mary the Jewess? Yes!" Galen nodded so hard he almost shook the table. "They wrote many useful works that I am sure will help generations of students. The great library in Alexandria boasts a full collection of their writings."  
Carlos grinned. Cecil persisted. "And did you hear anything of their family?"  
Galen frowned. "They mentioned nothing of such a personal nature in their writings. It did not occur to me to ask their successors. Why would it interest you?"  
Cecil stared at the wall of the booth. His quietest audible voice, "oh, no reason at all."

Carlos reached across the table and gestured for Cecil's hand. Cecil reached out and wove his fingers with Carlos's.  
"You okay, babe?" Carlos kept eye contact with Cecil despite the distracting presence just to Cecil's side.  
Cecil smiled. "Of course, honey! I'm fine."  
Galen reached a hand across the table too, gesturing at Carlos, and clasped the hand Cecil rested by his side. Cecil shook his hands free, Carlos retracted his arms.  
"Back to the lab as soon as we finish eating?" With a look, Carlos implored Cecil to nod.  
Cecil nodded. "Back to the lab."  
Galen smiled. "Oh, your laboratory is so interesting! I would like to spend some time there. With both of you. I am sure you could teach me some... _science."_

For the walk back, Carlos took one of Galen's arms and Cecil took the other. Galen described some of the injuries he had treated during his four years as chief physician to the gladiators in Pergamon. Carlos asked about his studies of anatomy. Cecil remained mostly quiet, only chipping in to ask if they could walk a little faster. 

Back in the lab, Galen walked around, picking up unfamiliar objects and asking Carlos about them. Cecil watched Carlos rescue some of his more delicate instruments and gently guided Galen back into the marked off area.  
"You are asking Carlos some very detailed questions!" Cecil commented.  
"Yes," Galen smiled. "I would like the opportunity to probe both of you. Deeply."  
Carlos raised his eyebrows but did not reply. He met Cecil's gaze. Cecil rolled his eyes.  
"Have you... uh..." Carlos tried to steer the conversation, "enjoyed your visit here? I mean, we didn't exactly ask if you wanted to come but--"  
Galen sniggered. "I would like to come. With you."  
"Oh!" Carlos edged backward. "Umm..."  
Galen sighed. "Have you any idea what it's like working with gladiators all day? And I can't touch any of that? I get offers, and by Aglea it is difficult to remember my oath sometimes." Galen reached out and squeezed Carlos's upper arm. "Sorry I grabbed your ass earlier. You could be a gladiator, if you trained. You would look glorious dressed in the attire of the Retiarius and maybe Cecil could dress as a defeated Thracian, I'd be the High Priest who sponsors you and we could--"

Galen stopped when Carlos held his hand up, palm towards him. Cecil stared at his phone and emitted a brief shriek, merging into a giggle.  
"Are you okay, babe?" Carlos called out. "Has something happened?"  
Cecil closed his eyes and breathed slowly to quell his giggles. "Yes, sweetie, uh, Galen? I am very sorry but we have to decline your most interesting offer. Carlos is needed. For _science."_  
Carlos made a silent _oh_ and nodded. "Okay. hmm, the longer we keep you here the more likely it is that there will be a disruption to the power supply and my machine will cut out and you will probably cease to exist in either timeline. Possibly all timelines. We should say goodbye and let you go home now."  
"Oh." Galen sighed and shrugged. "Thank you for bringing me here. I will bear in mind, Carlos, what you said about the heart but I am not convinced. Perhaps if I am permitted ever to dissect a human cadaver I may find evidence to support your theory."  
With another handshake, Galen was gone.

Carlos rolled his eyes and blew out a long breath. "Ceece, I thought you wanted to, uh, get to know scientists better? Galen offered, were you not tempted?"  
Cecil grinned. "No, he was really only into you. Were you tempted?"  
Carlos laughed. "Not really. I kinda liked him until he put his arm around me and tried to feel my ass. Ugh. So, what were you looking at on your phone earlier? I take it there is not an emergency I have to go deal with? For _science?"_  
Cecil showed Carlos his screen. "That's what a Retiarius looks like. We are going to find you a costume, go home," Cecil put on his best radio voice, "and I will be the lucky sponsor who gets to tell you what to do."  
"Mmm." Carlos nodded. "My sponsor might be in for a surprise or two. I can think of a few _highly scientific_ uses for that net and trident."


	5. Archimedes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Archimedes arrives unexpectedly, summoned from slumber in his own bed. Trouble is, how are Cecil and Carlos going to convince him that he is not steering a lucid dream?

“Ceece, you in here?” Carlos called out as he entered the lab, “only the door was unlocked and I gave everyone a day off for Dot Da… Oh!” Carlos laughed when he saw his lab coat. “Um, I know you must be here. Nobody else would have bothered putting any dots on my lab coat. Are you hiding again? Ceece, honey, remember what I said about labs not being playgrounds? I locked us in just in case anyone is tempted to wander in and touch my very scientific equipment.”  
A slightly-open cupboard sniggered. Carlos suppressed a laugh and pretended to search. 

“I deduce that you are here. Scientifically speaking, you must be somewhere. You are not at home, you are not at the radio station, you are not out bowling. You could be out getting coffee but the machine is still warm and the liquid in the jug is very _very_ dark.” Carlos walked past the cupboard, stopped, walked slowly backwards so that he was level with the gap in the door, opened it further and slipped inside. “Mmhmm, here you are.”  
Cecil grinned, eyes glinting in the dimness. “How did you find me?”  
“With scientific observation,” Carlos explained, smiling, “cupboards don’t generally snigger. So, do I win a prize for finding you?” Cecil wrapped his arms around Carlos’s neck in the cramped space and kissed him. Carlos clasped his hands around Cecil’s waist and held him close.  
“Hmm,” Carlos moved to kiss Cecil’s neck below his ear, making Cecil giggle. “We have the lab to ourselves. We don’t have to resort to making out in the cupboard.” Carlos continued to kiss Cecil’s neck from his ear to his exposed shoulder and across his collarbone. “But we can if you want. I like you in this shirt very much.”  
Cecil wriggled against Carlos and tipped his head back to let Carlos kiss his throat. Carlos reached the point of Cecil’s chin, kissed along his jawline. Cecil combed his fingers into Carlos’s hair, held his head still and kissed him back. Carlos slipped hands under Cecil’s shirt to stroke warm skin.  
“Mmhmhm,” Cecil pulled his head back a little and gripped Carlos’s hair to hold his head still while grinding against Carlos. “How far does my favourite scientist want to go, unscientifically speaking, in the limited confines of this cupboard?”  
Carlos grinned and ran one hand down to squeeze Cecil’s ass. “Would my favourite blabbermouth radio host like me to describe, with full scientific detail, all the things I’m thinking of— WHAT THE GLOWING CL…?”

A dazed looking man stood in the lab, hand on the cupboard door he had just opened, staring at them.  
“I do apologise, I do not know where I am. I may have been sleepwalking. Can you direct me back to my home? I must have wandered far, this part of Syracuse is not known to me.”

Carlos and Cecil released each other. The stranger backed away to let them out of the cupboard. Carlos frowned, Cecil took in the stranger’s clothing style. Carlos raised his hand to gesture and opened his mouth to challenge the stranger but Cecil laid a hand on his forearm.  
“I don’t know where this place you mentioned is. Syracuse? It could be a new development on the edge of town I guess but I’ve never heard of it. I know this community pretty well and I’ve travelled before. Is it a real place or a made up one like, what was that place you told me about, Carlos? Bawstuhn?” Cecil kept his hand on Carlos’s arm. Carlos turned to look at Cecil.  
“Ceece, that is a real place. So is Syracuse, but it is not here. Or near here.” Carlos looked the stranger up and down. “My lab is out of bounds to unauthorised visitors, but you don’t look like you are from here and I know how discouraging it can be to have people point and shout _interloper!_ This is a dangerous place, I thought I had locked the doors. Did you come in through the main door next to Rico’s or round the back into the basement?”  
The stranger frowned, rubbed his face and scratched his chin. “I do not remember. I went to bed at home last night and woke up on your floor over there.” He pointed.  
Cecil and Carlos looked at each other, eyebrows up and eyes wide open, mouths forming _ah!_ shapes. Cecil smiled and stuck out his hand in greeting.  
“Welcome to Night Vale, stranger. I’m Cecil Palmer, this is Carlos the Scientist. What’s your name?”

The man accepted Cecil’s handshake. “I am Archimedes of Syracuse. Where, exactly, is Night Vale? I have not heard of it before,” he kept eye contact with Cecil, “and I have travelled as far as Alexandria.”  
Cecil took a breath in to reply but Carlos shouted out first. “Seriously! Archimedes! Oh. My. Glowing. Cloud.” He shook hands with Archimedes until Archimedes put his free hand on Carlos’s arm to help him disengage. Carlos’s voice raised in pitch, making Cecil laugh at his enthusiasm. “I am so excited that you exist here, even for a brief time! I set up my machine to try to find you and left it deactivated but…” Carlos rummaged in his lab coat pocket. “Ceece, you absolute sweetheart! You accidentally bumped my phone in my pocket and the remote app operated my machine at the settings I already input! While we were, um, busy.”

Archimedes smirked at Carlos. “Busy. Is that what you call it here? Where I come from that’s called f—“  
Cecil interjected, “Carlos is totally my boyfriend and we were not expecting a guest. Not right _then_ anyway. I mean Carlos planned to invite another scientist over later, after we’d f— Ow, Carlos! What was that for, honey?”  
Carlos rolled his eyes. “I’m sorry I poked you a little harder than I intended. Archimedes just got here and I have so many questions to ask him. Maybe leave our personal stuff out of it?”  
“Huh. After Boyle I wanted to make sure that visitors wouldn’t try saving us from eternal damnation with their righteous indignation.” Cecil smiled at Archimedes. “We have all sorts of bloodstone ceremonies of our own for that sort of thing. Where did you get your outfit? I do like the off-the-shoulder asymmetric look.” Cecil put his arm around Carlos’s waist. “So does Carlos, don’t you?”

Archimedes frowned. “Carlos, I have some questions of my own. You have not explained why I am not still in my bed at home, sadly alone. Or am I dreaming this? It is probable this is a dream perhaps I can steer it… Hmm.”  
Cecil followed the line of their guest’s gaze and sniggered. “Carlos does have lovely hair, doesn’t he? Yours is pretty nice too. Is it a scientist thing, Carlos? It is real, Arc? Not a wig? Can I call you _Arc?”_  
Archimedes laughed. “My hair is all my own. Thank you for the compliment. And, since I am more and more convinced that this is a dream, tomorrow I will wake up with only a vague sense of unreality, not only can you call me _Arc_ , you can call me whenever you want to be _busy._ ” Cecil felt heat rise up his cheeks as Carlos snorted and sniggered. Arc tilted his head to one side and smiled at Carlos. “You too, if you like.”

Carlos held up his hand. “Archimedes—“  
“Call me Arc. I like it, it seems appropriately geometrical”  
“Arc. Uh, okay, um, this is not a dream. You are really here in Night Vale, not asleep at home. I’m very flattered that you—”  
“Carlos, we should be more welcoming hosts than this. Arc? Would you like coffee?” Cecil pointed towards the break area. Arc followed Cecil, with Carlos bringing up the rear. Once their guest was settled, Cecil busied himself with the lab coffee hammer. Carlos addressed Arc.  
“I am sorry for the misunderstanding. I hope you are not embarrassed about… about your… about what you said.”  
Arc laughed. “You both speak Greek of a very scholarly level. Were you educated at Athens rather than Sparta? Is that where you met” Arc took in Carlos’s confused expression. “Forgive me, perhaps you are naturally gifted linguists.”  
“Oh! No,” Carlos shook his head. “My machine translates. I hear you speaking English. I invented it, it’s very scientific. It translates between the languages we each expect to hear. I deduce that you saw my lab and expected to meet someone educated in whatever language predominates between scholars of your time.” Carlos wondered at the compulsion to impress that won over his desire to learn. “Can I ask you some questions?”  
Arc nodded. “Can I ask you one first? Your delightful boyfriend. Are either of you insecure or jealous of the other's love?”  
Cecil’s chanting was almost over. Carlos recognised the change in cadence of the words the machine could not, or would not, translate. He frowned. "Not at all! We lived apart for a while and we coped.” Carlos watched Cecil and smiled. "I missed him so much! How could I let jealousy spoil this?"

Cecil brought three upturned cups and the coffee jug over and joined the two scientists. Carlos tapped Cecil’s hand, leaned close to his ear and murmured, “he predates Cleo and Maria and they had never tasted coffee before.”  
Cecil grinned, held up one finger, righted the cups and pointed at the _Moonlite keeps you up all nite_ branded sugar packets. Carlos poured coffee, Cecil poured sugar. Arc took the offered cup and sniffed at it. He took a sip and smiled.  
“This tastes a little like that drink Stefanos the Jerk brought back from a trading expedition south along the Red Sea coast.” Cecil swallowed and stared. Arc frowned and took another sip. “Yours is better. Stefanos is a well-meaning buffoon, I think he let the beans spoil.”

Arc let the single cup last until the jug was empty and Cecil was buzzing. Carlos cleared away the used cups, leaving Cecil to entertain their guest. Cecil leaned forward, elbows on the table, and smiled at Arc. “So-o-o, you’re a scientist. Carlos is my favourite scientist and you are Carlos’s favourite scientist so I guess that makes you some kind of double-favourite. What science do you do?”  
Arc laughed. “Maybe I am favourite-squared. I have done a lot of mathematics and engineering. I invent things for my employers but I am not proud of that, I do it to maintain my position and earn my keep. My true love is pure philosophy. Can I show you an example?”  
Cecil nodded. “Please do! I am _very_ into science. I am sure I can find it in my heart to love philosophy too.”  
Arc asked for writing materials. Cecil brought him a pencil and Carlos’s current notebook, opened at a fresh page. Arc touched the tip of the pencil, felt the texture of the paper and grinned. “You must be very wealthy to afford such fine materials!”  
Cecil laughed and shook his head.

Arc drew a circle. Cecil watched.  
“Oh that is perfect!”  
Arc smiled at the compliment and drew a square enclosed by the ring, all four corners touching the perfect circle. He drew another square outside the circle, the circle just fitting into the square.  
“I can find the area of a square easily. But the area of a circle is complex. However, I know the area of the circle must be larger than the small square inside but smaller than the large square outside. Yes?”  
Cecil frowned. “Ye-e-es?”  
Arc continued. “I also know that the area of the circle is some number multiplied by the radius multiplied by itself.” Arc smiled at Cecil’s expression. He waved a hand. “I did some measurements and drew a graph.”  
Cecil smiled. “Aah, science.”  
“Yes. Science. I want to find the mystery number that will tell me the area of a circle if I know its radius. The inner and outer squares tell me the lowest and highest values my number must lie between.”  
“O-o-o-kay.” Cecil stared at Arc’s drawing. “But squares are not like circles. Even I can see that.”  
“A valid observation, Cecil! Uh, if you call me Arc I will call you Cee. What if I change the squares? To… to hexagons. I can find the area of hexagons easily too. It is a little more difficult than squares, but not much.”  
Cecil watched Arc draw another perfect circle, a smaller hexagon neatly fitting inside and a larger hexagon kissing the circumference in six places.  
“Now the bigger area and the smaller area are closer in size than before, and closer to the circle. Can you see that?”  
Cecil nodded. “I guess, if you say so.”  
“So my estimate is closer to the true value. What if I used octagons?” Arc cocked an eyebrow at Cecil.  
Cecil sighed and rolled his eyes. “Huh. Why stop there?”  
Arc laughed. “Exactly! I choose shapes with more and more sides, calculate their areas, and eventually after many, many repetitions of my procedure, with polygons of more and more sides, I will have my answer for the value of this mystery number, pi.”  
Cecil leaned back. “That is a very long process. Don’t you get bored?”  
Arc looked shocked. “Bored? Ugh, it is called the _method of exhaustion._ I suppose it is how I got so good at drawing circles. It was necessary, there are some in power who would like to declare that the value of pi is exactly three, because that would be simple, as if you can just make up the parts of mathematics you fail to comprehend.”

Arc folded the page at the binding and made as if to tear. Cecil shrieked and grabbed Arc’s hands.  
“No! Stop! You can’t tear out pages from Carlos’s lab book. One time I tore out a page from one of the precious notebooks. Carlos was furious. It was the worst row ever. Seriously, we were apologising to each other for days after and I don’t think you have long enough with us to consider that level of commitment.”  
Arc allowed Cecil to pull his hands away from the notebook. Carlos returned and picked up the book, studied Arc’s drawings and annotations and gave him a pen. “If you write in my lab book you have to sign and date the page.” Arc released Cecil’s hands and took the pen to add his name where Carlos pointed.

Arc handed the pen back to Carlos. “Is that right? I do not want to dream any disagreement between us.” He smiled and winked. "I think I already bored your boyfriend and not in the good way." Carlos frowned and took the notebook back to its place on his bench. He tapped Cecil on the shoulder and gestured at him to follow. Cecil joined Carlos at the far end of the lab.  
“Ceece, honey, we have to convince Arc that he’s not dreaming before he says something he would never dr… I mean before he says or does something he might regret when he realises it is not a dream.” Carlos watched Cecil frown and nod. “We could take him out and show him things he couldn’t possibly imagine for himself. Really weird things.” Cecil and Carlos giggled at each other. “There must be something far outside Arc’s experience we can use to convince him he is awake and experiencing new things. Any ideas?”  
Cecil scratched his head. “You know, we should take him to the Moonlite. He did mention that he is looking for the best value pie and the Moonlite’s sweet potato and chili might do the trick.”  
Carlos grinned. “That is a great idea, sweetie. We can walk there. Maybe we’ll see something that will convince him he’s awake.

Arc walked along the street, flanked by Cecil and Carlos. Cars passed although it was not a busy day. Carlos smiled. "I bet you have never seen anything like those before."  
Arc laughed. "I am intrigued. Those carriages are faster than the ox-carts and horse buggies I am used to. There must be some interesting machinery that powers them. When I wake I will put my mind to the problem. It will be as an academic exercise merely to prove it possible, unless my patron requires a dung-free mode of transportation."  
Carlos frowned, Cecil shrugged and smiled. "I bet you have an excellent imagination, Arc. What else have you invented?"

Arc rolled his eyes.  
"Ugh. My home is on a strategically vital island between larger nations. We retain some pretence of independence by sucking up to one or other of our warring neighbours, the stronger, whilst fending off the weaker. To that end, most of my inventions are military devices. I designed a screw-pump for... Cee? It is a serious matter! My screw-pump... Oh! I see. Well, it was for bailing out damaged or rain-sodden ships." Arc leered at Cecil. "Is there something you find amusing about the screw-pump? It pumps. It screws." He looped his arms around Cecil's and Carlos's waists. "Want to know what I was doing when I had the idea of inventing a device that both pumps and screws and can be operated with one hand?"  
Cecil sniggered. Carlos felt his neck sweat and his face warm but he snorted and refused to make eye contact with either of his companions.

Carlos asked the next question. "Is it true that you once ran naked through the streets, shouting _Eureka!_ because you had an idea in your bath?"  
Arc groaned and released his grip on Cecil and Carlos so he could cover his face. He shook his head. "No, please tell me that rumour dies. It's not true. I had the idea on my bath but you may be assured that I finished bathing, dressed properly and walked at a sedate pace to see my king, Hiero, with my idea. He had a local smith make a new crown by melting down the old one, adding more gold and moulding it into something altogether prettier. Hiero worried that the smith might steal some of the gold and make up the weight with lead or silver. I reasoned that I could weigh the new crown precisely and if I had some means of finding its volume I could divide to find the crown's density. If I carried out the same procedure with pure gold, I should get the same result."

Arc looked from Cecil to Carlos and back to determine whether they understood, or were at least listening. Carlos was rapt, Cecil smiled and nodded. Arc continued.  
"But the crown was a beautiful filigree, a work of art. I could not simply measure its dimensions! As I sank down into my bath I realised that the bulk of my body pushed an equal volume of water out of the way. If I filled a large bowl to the brim and dropped the new crown in, the spilled water should have the same volume as the fancy crown."  
Carlos nodded and said _hmm._ Cecil asked, "What happened?"  
Arc shook his head. "Very bad for the smith! Despite repeated measurements..."  
"Hmm yes, very important!" Carlos added.  
"...the crown's density did not match that of pure gold. The smith admitted under some duress that he had replaced much of the gold with silver to increase his profits. Hiero did not appreciate the smith's excuse of _who cares, it still looks totally awesome and that's all you need of a crown, eh?"_

Carlos and Cecil walked in silence for a few minutes. Cecil pointed to the corner of the street. "There's the Moonlite. Arc, what is your favourite invention?"  
Cecil held the door open, Carlos led them to his favourite corner booth and Arc laughed as he settled on the curved horseshoe bench. "I am most proud of a war machine that could not be built and would never work. A military device of such huge engineering challenge that not even Hiero was prepared to build it."  
Carlos frowned. "Not the catapult? I heard those were very successful."  
Arc shook his head. "No. Hiero insisted I meet with him to hear about his latest plans for defending our city. He wanted me to invent a machine that would make enemy ships catch fire at a distance farther than flaming arrows could reach, to avoid retaliatory fire. He spent the entire time gazing at himself in the shiniest mirror," Cecil shivered, Carlos took his hand, "adjusting his new crown and stroking his beard. So I designed a machine that required hundreds of highly polished mirrors, held perfectly still and all aligned, to focus sunlight onto incoming ships. I may have drawn a diagram for personal viewing only, showing the Sun peeking from between my Hiero's cheeks while he bent over and... Never mind. My king was not pleased with me at all and refused to call for me for days until I apologised." 

Menus appeared on the table. Cecil picked them up, handed them back and smiled at their server. "Hey, do you have sweet potato chili pie today?" The server nodded. "Great! Can we have one pie and three coffees?"  
Carlos tackled Arc while they waited for their order.  
"Do you really think you are dreaming?" Arc nodded.  
"Why?"  
Arc thought for a few seconds. "Everyone speaks Greek, I am not surprised by any of the strange things I have seen so they must be familiar to my mind, perhaps a product of it. And I have dreamt up a pair of beautiful companions to make me feel at ease. Although there is one part of my person that is--"  
Cecil squeezed Arc's knee once and let go. "Uh, that's pretty forward, Arc. I mean, I'm flattered, aren't you flattered, Carlos?" Carlos nodded. "But it doesn't seem right, if you're convinced you are dreaming. Would you be so open if you knew you were awake?"  
Arc frowned. "Hmm, an interesting question. I am usually discreet about my encounters. I kept Stefanos the Jerk a secret." He grinned. "That was a very guilty pleasure indeed. His incessant chatter about seeing lines in the sky persuaded me to take up astronomy."

Carlos took Arc's hand across the table. "I find you interesting, attractive and intelligent but if you are really convinced this is a dream then I have to decline your advances and ask that you stop. If you are asleep, as you claim, you are not capable of giving consent. Dreaming about giving consent is not real consent." Carlos lowered his voice and beckoned Arc closer. "I would not have sex with someone who was fast asleep, they can't say yes or no."  
Cecil shook his head. "No, he won't do that even if I tell him it's ok before I fall asleep. I think it would be nice to wake up to-- OW! Carlos!"  
Arc sighed and leaned back. "You know, this dream isn't turning out as good as I hoped." He closed his eyes. "Maybe I am not dreaming. But how can any of this possibly be real?"  
Carlos grinned as the server brought a tray to their table. "When we're done here we can go back to my lab and I'll show you one of my inventions."

After the experience of the Moonlite's good value pie, followed by a copious quantity of plain yogurt to extinguish the pain, Arc was convinced he was awake. Back at the lab, Carlos showed off his scientist-summoning machine with pride. Arc admired its construction, wondered at the lines and tangles of insulated wires coiling and snaking like intestines under the maintenance hatch, and asked a question that silenced Carlos.

"You can find any scientist you want to meet?" Arc tilted his head and raised an eyebrow.  
"Yes!" Carlos replied. "Almost, there are some places I can't reach. I'd need more power but the electricity bill was pretty high last month."  
"I see." Arc stroked his chin. "Hmm."  
Cecil watched from the break area as the two scientists stared at each other.  
"You reach into history, because time... what?"  
"Time is not real. Every instant is equal to every other instant so I can choose a location and an instant and bring that person here. It is limited," Carlos sighed. "I can't make anyone stay even if they really want to."  
Arc nodded. "What if, instead of being asleep in my bed and unable to consent, as you so rightly pointed out... What if I had been awake and unwilling to be plucked from my world and dropped into yours? Does your machine grant the right to refuse?"

Carlos began to speak but stuttered into silence. Cecil sat with his hands over his face.  
"I, um, I didn't think... I mean, why would someone _not_ want to see...?"  
Carlos sat on the floor. Arc sighed.  
"But you made the decision for them. Should I walk into your home at night, lift you from your bed and put you in mine? Would that be acceptable?"  
"Of course not." Carlos shook his head. "Nobody seemed to mind."  
Arc crouched then sat on the floor beside Carlos. Carlos kept his eyes on his feet.  
"Arc, would you rather not be here? I can send you back and you will find yourself in bed and this will feel like a dream. Or perhaps a nightmare. You will wake with memories you can't quite pin down that fade like the memory of a dream."

Arc touched Carlos's arm. "No. If I had known in advance I would have agreed to come. I would consent if you asked."  
Carlos sighed. "I did not ask. I never even considered asking. Ugh, I am the worst kind of scientist. I will send you back then destroy my machine and never build another."  
Arc laughed and threw his arms around the miserable man. "Oh don't be so melodramatic. Can you not alter the design to allow you to ask? There must be a way. If you can think it, it can be done. Somehow."  
Carlos frowned. "Huh. It will not be a simple adjustment. I would need to design a completely new machine with a two way portal and speech circuitry built in and it would need--"  
"A scientist of extreme intelligence and creativity to build it!" Arc finished Carlos's sentence for him and laughed again. "I think I know a scientist who is up to the challenge." Arc shuffled closer and wrapped his arms around Carlos. He rested his chin on Carlos's shoulder and spoke in a low voice. "How long can I stay with you and Cee? I'm good with engineering and I _really_ want to get to know you both better."

Cecil sat on the other side of Carlos.  
"Are you okay?"  
Carlos smiled and nodded. "I will be. I am a _scientist_ and I will be _fine._ I'm feeling something I have not experienced since I left high school. I think it is a mixture of embarrassment and self-loathing."  
Cecil laughed and put his arms around Carlos, sandwiching the scientist between himself and Arc who still held his fellow scientist loosely. "Is that all? Jeez, sweetie, I get that twice a week. I think it's on auto-renew from the feelings delivery service. I should call them and cancel."  
Carlos laughed and kissed Cecil. "Thanks, honey."  
Carlos turned towards Arc. "Thank you for pointing out the wrongness of my actions. I will have to deactivate the machine and when I do that, you will have to be there, " Carlos pointed at the marked off area on the floor, "and you will return home to your bed."  
"You mean I can't stay and help design your new machine? Do you have to turn it off now?"  
Carlos nodded. "I want to destroy it as soon as I can. I want to go back and not have built it in the first place but that is impossible even though I can imagine it."

Arc sighed and shrugged. All three rose from the linoleum. Arc stepped back and turned to walk into the marked area, but Cecil held his arm and pulled him back. "Arc, do you mind if I have a moment with Carlos?" Arc shrugged and sat in the break area. Cecil steered Carlos to the opposite end of the lab.  
"So-o-o you're sending him home already."  
"Yes, that is what I should do." Carlos pulled at his hair. "When he is safely out of our timeline I will deactivate the machine."  
Cecil pursed his lips and shrugged slowly. "But now he knows he's awa-a-ake..."  
Carlos frowned. "Ceece, remember I struggle with vague hints sometimes. Tell me what you want."  
Cecil smiled, looked at the ceiling then fixed Carlos with a steady stare. "You know how Arc was totally forward, maybe... umm... coming on a little strong? I know I blushed at a couple of his remarks. I could be wrong but I think he is still... um... now the issue of consent is resolved... Do you understand my most plain and direct speech, honey?"  
Carlos frowned. "Ceece, do you want us to invite him to stay?"  
"Ma-a-aybe... Do you think _your_ hair will go that silver white eventually? It is quite attractive."  
Carlos laughed. "Observations of my closest family members suggest that yes, in a couple of decades I will probably have silver hair. Observations of _you_ suggest that you would like to get your hands in Arc's hair to compare it with mine. Since that would be a scientific endeavour, I am inclined to support your scientific desires."  
"So-o-o, for science, mm-hmm?" Carlos nodded. Cecil grinned. "You know I love you, right?"  
"Yes, I know. I love you too!" Carlos leaned forward and kissed Cecil. "I could leave the machine on until tomorrow morning, I guess, if you're _really_ into scientists."


End file.
